Category Archives: France

Liberté, égalité, fraternité – unless you choose to wear a burqa

The Associated Press reports:

Police on Saturday arrested 61 people — including 19 women — for attempting to hold an outlawed Paris protest against France’s pending ban on face-covering Islamic veils, a top police official said.

Fifty-nine people were detained while trying to demonstrate at Place de la Nation in eastern Paris, as were two others while traveling there from Britain and Belgium, said Nicolas Lerner, chief of staff for the Paris police chief.

The arrests come amid in a rising, if small, groundswell of controversy over Monday’s start of an official ban of garments that hide the face, which includes Muslim veils such as the slit-eyed niqab and the full face-covering burqa. Women who disobey the law risk a fine, special classes and a police record.

Viv Groskop writes:

There was a time when Shazia Mirza, stand-up comic and British Asian Muslim, performed as a character who wore a hijab. She doesn’t now. But she still has a good line on the full-body veil. “All my cousins in France wear the burqa. Which is great. Because they all use the same bus pass.”

Not any more. Tomorrow, France launches a full-scale ban. For Sarkozy and his friends, the burqa is no joke. It’s dangerous and illegal. Women wearing the burqa and the niqab (the more common facial veil) will not exactly be arrested on sight. But if they wear a veil over their face in a public place, anyone can ask them to uncover their face – or leave. Not quite stop and search. Just stop and unmask. If a woman refuses to co-operate, citizens are advised to call the police. The fine is €150.

Does this sound a little unfriendly to you? If so, be very worried. Because this trend is spreading. A ban is already in operation in Belgium and under discussion in Canada, Denmark and Spain. It is likely to become law in the Netherlands this year or next. There have been calls in Sweden for the niqab to be prohibited in schools and universities.

A de facto ban already exists in Italy (where a 1975 antiterrorism law forbids the covering of the face) and Berlusconi’s party has drafted a new, more specific ruling. Last year, a Tunisian woman was fined €500 for wearing a burqa in Italy’s Piedmont region.

Facebooktwittermail

Leaving Gaddafi a way out

If Sarkozy, Cameron and Obama believe that Gaddafi’s demonization makes the war legitimate in the eyes of domestic audiences which might otherwise lack interest in the fate of Libya, the West will have needlessly restricted the range of acceptable outcomes to this war.

Even at this point, there should be some effort to open up as many exit methods possible both for the Libyan leader and those around him. If Gaddafi’s only options are to cling to power or be killed, he will without doubt fight to the finish. If he can be convinced he won’t win he also needs to be enticed by the credible possibility that there remains a way out — one that’s more appealing than facing trial in The Hague.

Gaddafi is too vain to be serious about martyrdom. I don’t believe he is ready to die, and if that is indeed the case then his desire to live should be seen as an advantage that his adversaries should exploit.

Simon Tisdall focuses on the implications of the expressions of personal animosity that the war’s Western leaders are directing at Muammar Gaddafi.

Now the missiles and B52s have begun their dreadful work, Gaddafi knows, if he didn’t already, that he’s in a fight to the finish – and for him, there may be no escape. His course of action in the coming days will be influenced by this realisation, and may be consequently more extreme and more aggressive than otherwise.

His defiant overnight statement, when he condemned the “crusader colonialism” afflicting his country, was clearly aimed at Arab and Muslim world opinion in particular, and the non-western world in general (major countries such as China, India, Brazil and Germany have not supported the intervention). Regime claims about mounting civilian deaths will play big there, Iraq-style. Gaddafi will press his propaganda advantage for all its worth.

The demonisation of Gaddafi has made it impossible for western leaders to countenance his continuation in power. But without the ground invasion they have pledged not to undertake, he could well survive as the overlord of western and southern Libya following a de facto partition, hostile, vengeful and highly dangerous.

This seems to be his plan. Far from giving up or drawing back, Gaddafi escalated the fighting around Benghazi at the weekend. Rather than abandon cities such as Zawiya, as Obama demanded, he is reportedly moving his troops into urban areas where they can less easily be targeted from the air. Meanwhile, his apparent willingness to use “human shields”, his threats of retaliation across the Mediterranean area, and his designation of the whole of north Africa as a “war zone” raises the spectre of possible terrorist attacks and an alarming regression to his old ways.

Gaddafi has personalised this war, too. And he is not going to go quietly. Military superiority in the air will count for nothing if pro-regime army and air force units, militia and security forces, and civilian and tribal supporters who have remained loyal refuse to turn on him or kick him out of Tripoli. By its determination to “get Gaddafi”, the west has made this a fight to the death – and death may be a long time in coming.

Chris McGreal reports:

Benghazi woke on Saturday morning to discover that its wild celebrations over the UN security council’s declaration and Gaddafi’s calling of a ceasefire on Friday were premature. Residents had imagined the city was saved by the west’s threat of air strikes unless Gaddafi halted his attacks on Libya’s rebellious towns.

But at dawn the dictator’s army was fighting its way into the country’s second-largest city of about 700,000 people using rockets and tanks.

As the shells fell, rattling nerves and buildings, a single question emerged time and again. On occasions it was delivered as a baffled plea by middle-aged men gathered on Benghazi’s seafront as they anxiously awaited the latest word on the fighting. At other times, the question was shouted in anger by young men manning the barricades and facing the threatened onslaught with Kalashnikovs and petrol bombs.

“Where are the air strikes? Why is the west waiting until it is too late?” asked Khalid el-Samad, a 27-year-old chemical engineer, who shook his finger in fury. “Sarkozy said it. Obama said it. Gaddafi must stop. So why do they do nothing? Is it just talk while we die?”

Benghazi reeled in shock as the rebels initially fell back and then fought hard to contain the assault while artillery fire rocked parts of the city for much of the day.

Dozens of people were killed, among them the civilians the UN resolution was pledged to protect, and hospitals treated an even larger number wounded. As the fighting intensified, thousands fled east towards the Egyptian border in cars, pick-up trucks and buses crammed with people and what was most precious or essential – bedding and cooking pots.

Alongside the angry questions over the lack of air strikes was bafflement that the western powers had apparently been duped into believing Gaddafi’s false promise of a ceasefire that bought him time to launch the assault on Benghazi by delaying military action French officials had suggested was imminent.

“In 42 years we learned never to trust Gaddafi,” said Hassan Khalafa, an accountant carrying a Kalashnikov at a checkpoint near the former court that serves as the revolutionary government’s headquarters. “He always lies. The only time he told the truth is when he said he will kill all of us in Benghazi. France and America and the UN have been fooled by him.”

As dusk settled, Gaddafi’s gamble appeared to have failed. In the face of rebel resistance, his army pulled back only to be hit a few hours later by the air strikes. But by then, it was clear that the people of Benghazi will not feel safe until the man who has controlled their country for 42 years is overthrown.

Gaddafi’s prophetic declaration? “All tryants fall under the feet of the people.”

Facebooktwittermail

Arabs say Gaddafi must go, wary of Western action

Reuters reports:

Muammar Gaddafi’s appeal for Arab solidarity in the face of foreign air strikes fell on deaf ears across the Middle East on Sunday, but support for his opponents was mixed with deep suspicion of Western motives.

Western forces have unleashed their biggest military attack in the Arab world since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, targeting Gaddafi’s air defences and armoured vehicles near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in the east of the country.

A few hours after the first missiles struck, Gaddafi called on “citizens of the Arab and Islamic nations” and other developing countries to “stand by the heroic Libyan people to confront this aggression”.

But Arabs from North Africa to the Gulf, many demanding political rights for the first time, dismissed the appeal from a leader whose four decades of authoritarian and capricious rule have exhausted any reserves of sympathy.

“It is now clear and understandable that Arab people want to get rid of their leaders, so leaders should simply leave and not fight their people and force foreign nations to interfere,” said Mohamed Abdel Motaleb, a bank employee in Cairo, where mass protests toppled veteran president Hosni Mubarak last month.

“I am very much against foreign troops fighting in Libya, but Arab leaders should not let that happen through their stubbornness and refusal to quit power”.

A Libyan government official said 64 people died in the Western air strikes and the head of the Arab League, which supported Libyan no-fly zone, said the organisation had not endorsed attacks on ordinary Libyans.

“What is happening in Libya differs from the aim of imposing a no-fly zone, and what we want is the protection of civilians and not the bombardment of more civilians,” Amr Moussa said, announcing an emergency Arab League meeting to discuss Libya.

The overthrow of Mubarak in Egypt and Tunisia’s Zine al Abidine bin Ali — as well as mass protests against leaders in Yemen and Bahrain — have restored a dormant Arab pride which was crushed by decades of autocracy and foreign intervention.

But many people in the Arab world, while anxious to see the end of Gaddafi’s rule, felt that the resort to Western military action has tarnished Libya’s revolution.

“Who will accept that foreign countries attack an Arab country? This is something shameful,” said Yemeni rights activist Bashir Othman.

OIL OR DEMOCRACY?

Support for military action was also muted by deep-seated suspicions that the West is more concerned with securing access to Arab oil supplies than supporting Arab aspirations.

“They are hitting Libya because of the oil, not to protect the Libyans,” said Ali al-Jassem, 53, in the village of Sitra in Bahrain, where protests by the Shi’ite Muslim majority against the Sunni ruling Al-Khalifa family have triggered military reinforcement by neighbouring Gulf Arab forces.

A spokesman for Bahrain’s largest Shi’ite opposition party Wefaq questioned why the West was intervening against Gaddafi while it allowed oil-producing allies to support a crackdown on protesters in Bahrain in which 11 people have been killed.

“We think what is happening in Bahrain is no different to what was happening in Libya,” Ibrahim Mattar said. “Bahrain is very small so the deaths are significant for a country where Bahrainis are only 600,000.”

In Iraq, where U.S.-led forces invaded eight years ago to topple Saddam Hussein, opposition to Gaddafi was tempered by the years of violence which Iraq endured after Saddam’s downfall, as well as anger at perceived double standards.

“Bombing Gaddafi’s forces is a step in the right direction but turning blind eyes to the slaughter of innocent protesters in Bahrain is a step in the wrong direction,” said Amir Ahmed, owner of a home appliance shop in Baghdad’s Karrada district.

The leader of Lebanon’s Shi’ite group Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said many people had spelt out their support for the protests in Egypt and Libya, “but when Bahrain is involved… their ink dries up”.

“What is the difference between the Al-Khalifa regime and the regimes of (Hosni) Mubarak and Gaddafi?” he said in a televised speech on Saturday night.

But criticism of the West has not translated into support for Gaddafi, who has bemused or infuriated leaders across the Arab world during his four decades in power.

Facebooktwittermail

The fight for Libya

The Los Angeles Times reports:

With his popularity at a record low and facing an election next year, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was in desperate need of a boost to his political stature.

And on Saturday, he got it.

The French leader, once dubbed Super Sarko by the local press for his eagerness to take the reins in global crises, summoned leaders from four continents to an emergency war council at the Elysee presidential palace in Paris to agree on military action against strongman Moammar Kadafi in Libya.

His 20 guests had barely reached an agreement when Sarkozy announced that French planes were already in the air preparing to strike.

With almost theatrical gravitas, Sarkozy said France had “decided to assume its role, its role before history” in stopping Kadafi’s “killing spree” against people whose only crime was to seek to “liberate themselves from servitude.”

Barely more than three years ago, Sarkozy gave Kadafi the red carpet treatment in Paris, welcoming him with open arms and allowing the Libyan leader to pitch a Bedouin tent near the Elysee. Now the French president was announcing that he was sending warplanes in to bomb him.

Beside Sarkozy was British Prime Minister David Cameron, France’s partner in the military offensive, talking tough but overshadowed by his Gallic counterpart.

The Guardian reports:

In Britain, the question Cameron was asked in the Commons after his statement on Friday was an understandable one: is the UK capable of such a military endeavour? The prime minister – speaking coincidentally eight years to the day since Tony Blair asked parliament for its backing for the invasion of Iraq – was in no doubt that the country was in good shape for the campaign, and he reminded MPs that the UK was still the world’s fourth-biggest spender on defence.

Indeed, it is arguable that one of the figures vindicated by events over the past 48 hours was Liam Fox. The defence secretary has overseen a sometimes brutal, relatively successful, campaign to lessen the size of the cuts to trim the Ministry of Defence’s £36bn of debt, arguing that Britain needs to retain its capability to strike quickly and decisively in an increasingly unpredictable world.

Libya, in more ways that one, has bolstered his cause. Only on Thursday – hours before the no-fly zone was approved by the UN – a confident-sounding Fox was promising defence unions that he would still find ways to reduce the fallout of last year’s strategic defence and security review, by promising to save thousands of threatened civilian jobs. Yet, just a fortnight earlier, he had kicked off the month by confirming that more than a 1,000 jobs would be axed from the RAF by September, with almost 1,700 to follow. Speculation clouded the future of the Tornado GR4 strike aircraft with reports that the squadron at RAF Lossiemouth would be axed.

Libya, Fox might believe, would put a stop to such reports, reaffirming the need for a varied and sizeable air force. The Tornado, after all, has excelled in battle and is likely to be the first British assets used against Gaddafi.

Foreign Policy reports:

As the U.N. Security Council voted the evening of March 17 to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, the international media broadcast the joyous reaction from the streets of Benghazi, the de facto capital of the Libyan opposition. Thousands of Libyans celebrated in the streets, waving the old Libyan flag that has become the revolution’s standard and firing guns happily into the air. A spokeswoman for the Libyan opposition said that the revolutionaries were “embracing each other” over the U.N. decision.

But until recently, Benghazi’s attitude toward outside intervention was different. The rebels’ attitude toward the role of the international community evolved as Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi’s forces advanced aggressively over the past week, threatening to use their superior firepower to quash the poorly armed rebellion.

Only two weeks ago, professionally designed posters were plastered on billboards around Benghazi’s elegant palm tree-lined streets reading: “No foreign intervention. Libyan people can do it alone.” Men and women in the city reacted defiantly to suggestions they needed outside support. Qaddafi had already tried to pin the uprising on al Qaeda — they wanted change to come exclusively from a homegrown movement free from allegations of outside influence.

Views quickly changed as Qaddafi’s military continued to advance across the country’s east. Even as the Security Council met to announce its decision, Qaddafi’s forces were shelling Ajdabiya, the last town on their march toward Benghazi. In a radio address, Qaddafi — perhaps in a show of propaganda — vowed that his forces would reach Benghazi that night, and that they would “show no mercy and no pity” to the rebels.

The New York Times reports:

In a Paris hotel room on Monday night, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton found herself juggling the inconsistencies of American foreign policy in a turbulent Middle East. She criticized the foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates for sending troops to quash protests in Bahrain even as she pressed him to send planes to intervene in Libya.

Only the day before, Mrs. Clinton — along with her boss, President Obama — was a skeptic on whether the United States should take military action in Libya. But that night, with Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s forces turning back the rebellion that threatened his rule, Mrs. Clinton changed course, forming an unlikely alliance with a handful of top administration aides who had been arguing for intervention.

Within hours, Mrs. Clinton and the aides had convinced Mr. Obama that the United States had to act, and the president ordered up military plans, which Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, hand-delivered to the White House the next day. On Thursday, during an hour-and-a -half meeting, Mr. Obama signed off on allowing American pilots to join Europeans and Arabs in military strikes against the Libyan government.

The president had a caveat, though. The American involvement in military action in Libya should be limited — no ground troops — and finite. “Days, not weeks,” a senior White House official recalled him saying.

Facebooktwittermail

Nicolas Sarkozy calls for air strikes on Libya if Gaddafi attacks civilians

The Guardian reports:

Nicolas Sarkozy has called for targeted air strikes against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime if his forces use chemical weapons or launch air strikes against civilians.

As the EU foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton, warned that a no-fly zone could risk civilian lives in Libya, the French president told an emergency EU summit in Brussels that air strikes may soon be justified.

“The strikes would be solely of a defensive nature if Mr Gaddafi makes use of chemical weapons or air strikes against non-violent protesters,” Sarkozy said. The French president qualified his remarks by saying he had many reservations about military intervention in Libya “because Arab revolutions belong to Arabs”.

Sarkozy said he had won the support of David Cameron for his plan which would have to be approved by the UN, Arab states and Libyan opposition groups.

Facebooktwittermail

After the collapse of the Lebanese government — what next?

Lebanon’s government collapsed on Wednesday while Prime Minister Saad Hariri was in Washington. It wasn’t until today that he returned to Beirut.

Robert Fisk writes:

There are many who believe that Lebanon will now descend into a civil war, similar to the fratricidal conflict which it endured from 1976 to 1980. I doubt it. A new generation of Lebanese, educated abroad – in Paris, in London, in America – have returned to their country and, I suspect, will not tolerate the bloodshed of their fathers and grandfathers.

In theory, Lebanon no longer has a government, and the elections which were fairly held and which gave Saad Hariri his cabinet are no more. President Michel Suleiman will begin formal talks on Monday to try to create a new government.

But what does Hezbollah want? Is it so fearful of the Hague tribunal that it needs to destroy this country? The problem with Lebanon is perfectly simple, even if the Western powers prefer to ignore it. It is a confessional state. It was created by the French, the French mandate after the First World War. The problem is that to become a modern state it must de-confessionalise. But Lebanon cannot do so. Its identity is sectarianism and that is its tragedy. And it has, President Sarkozy please note, a French beginning point.

The Shias of Lebanon, of which Hezbollah is the leading party, are perhaps 40 per cent of the population. The Christians are a minority. If Lebanon has a future, it will be in due course be a Shia Muslim country. We may not like this; the West may not like this. But that is the truth. Yet Hezbollah does not want to run Lebanon. Over and over again, it has said it does not want an Islamic republic. And most Lebanese accept this.

But Hezbollah has made many mistakes. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, talks on television as if he is the President. He would like another war with Israel, ending in the “divine victory” which he claims his last war, in 2006, ended in. I fear the Israelis would like another war too. The Lebanese would prefer not to have one. But they are being pushed further and further into another war which Lebanon’s supposed Western friends seem to want. The Americans and the British would like to hurt Iran. And that is why they would like Hezbollah to be blamed for Mr Hariri’s murder – and for the downfall of the Lebanese government.

Nicholas Noe sees the greatest threat of war emanating from Israel, which having downgraded the threat from Iran, sees Hezbollah as its most immediate military threat. If such a war is to be averted, Washington will need more courage and imagination than have thus far been in evidence.

The Obama administration seems to believe that in order to stave off the logic of approaching war, it should try to manoeuvre Hezbollah into a tough position, thereby restraining it from pushing at the military red line. According to this thinking, to have accepted a Saudi-Syrian sponsored agreement regarding the Hariri tribunal actually would have only emboldened Hezbollah.

This approach is clearly less triumphal than during the heady Bush years (reflecting the changed balance of power in the Middle East as well as a less violence-focused mindset) but the overall direction is similar: throw whatever short-term pressure tools you have against the problem, rhetorically back up your narrow set of “friends” and hope for a miracle, since productive negotiations are essentially unrealistic – this time less because of “evil” opponents than an immovable Israeli ally.

The problem, however, is that Hezbollah will not be substantially boxed in by an indictment from the tribunal, since its domestic enemies are so militarily weak. Moreover, the party is apparently betting that an Israeli “pre-emptive” strike would overwhelm any domestic opposition, especially given Israel’s long history of obtusely, and sometimes wantonly attacking Lebanon as a whole.

Finally, the scent of domestic turmoil and indigenous opposition to Hezbollah is likely to entice Israel further into believing that the time is ripe for a strike against it.

All of which means the Obama administration really only has one good option. The current political breakdown in Lebanon will not be solved without bold steps towards peace that will involve concessions, especially, and perhaps most importantly, via the Syrian track.

Facebooktwittermail

Lula’s new world order

In a world long dominated by Western powers, the global order has been one shaped by coercion. Although the twentieth century saw the end of formal colonialism — the most overt coercive system — the perpetuation of economic colonialism has meant that the United States and its allies still expect to have the final word on most issues of global importance.

It seems natural then as a new global order emerges, Western domination will not get replaced by another form of domination — the Western coercive paradigm itself will be rejected. This indeed, is the new approach to diplomacy that is being pioneered by Brazil and Turkey.

If Barack Obama really embodied a new way of thinking, we’d have reason to hope that he’d be nimble enough to adapt to the momentous period of change that is now unfolding, yet so far all the indications are that whatever his personal abilities might be, he remains firmly tethered to an arthritic diplomatic and political establishment.

The nuclear swap deal just struck by Brazil, Turkey and Iran could be grasped as an unexpected but welcome opportunity. Instead, Washington’s guarded response barely conceals the fact that it sees it own power as being usurped.

In the Financial Times, Jonathan Wheatley notes that the deal may vindicate Brazilian diplomacy and prove the skeptics wrong.

The idea that Iran would abandon its alleged nuclear weapons programme in favour of a peaceful nuclear energy programme in response to amicable talks rather than under the threat of UN-backed sanctions seemed unrealistic, even naïve. But it may well have paid off. Even a US official conceded today that the latest news was “potentially a good development.”

If so, Celso Amorim, Brazil’s foreign minister, can be forgiven some self-satisfaction. “We are holding conversations in a respectful manner and with conviction . . . Our language is not that of pressure. Our language is that of persuasion, friendship and cooperation,” he told reporters in Tehran on Monday.

Al Jazeera notes:

The recent visit by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s president, to Iran is part of a broad multilateral foreign policy that he believes is commensurate with his nation’s ever-growing importance in a changing world axis.

Brazil under Lula’s eight year reign has promoted trade between Israel and Latin America, while supporting talks with Hamas and Palestinian statehood. It has balked at US urges for sanctions on Iran over their nuclear programme, which Washington believes has nefarious intentions, while on Sunday it brokered an agreement in which Tehran exchanges low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel.

Diplomatic ties have been created with more than 40 nations, including North Korea, and Brasilia maintains good relations across divides, for instance with foes Venezuela and Colombia.

Like India, Brazil is advocating for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council and wants reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to better represent developing nations.

For as Lula said in an interview with Al Jazeera this week, international geopolitics is shifting and global governance needs to change with it.

The impact of the agreement on Israel — where coercion is generally regarded as the only effective tool of persuasion — was summed up by Yossi Melman:

The agreement on the transfer of Iran’s enriched uranium, achieved via Turkish-Brazilian mediation, is an important victory for Iranian diplomacy and a debacle for Israeli policy. The deal reduces the chances, which were slim to begin with, of new sanctions being imposed on Iran, and makes a military strike against Iran even less feasible.

Zvi Bar’el notes:

Turkey is the deal’s big winner. Trade between Iran and Turkey already stands at $10 billion annually, so if sanctions were imposed on Tehran, Turkey would suffer a massive blow to its economy – and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party would suffer a major political setback. Alternatively, should Turkey decide not to uphold the sanctions, it might find itself in a crisis with the United States and Europe. Hence the tremendous effort Turkey made to achieve the deal, despite American warnings that Iran might be using Turkey in order to buy time.

Why did Iran choose to see Turkey as an “honest broker” and make the deal with it instead of with the permanent Security Council members? The two countries’ good relations are not free of suspicion, but both Iran and Turkey have adopted a policy of expanding their influence in the Middle East, influence of the sort that relies on cooperation rather than competition.

The closer ties between Turkey and Syria, Iran’s ally; the similar attitude that Turkey and Iran have toward Hamas; their shared interests in Iraq; and a similar view of radical Islamic terrorism all combined with Turkey’s disappointment over European views of its candidacy to join the European Union to create a confluence of interests that, for the time being, trumps their disagreements. Moreover, from an ideological standpoint, Iran prefers Turkey to the U.S.: Any concession to Washington or its Security Council partners would be perceived as a surrender.

The Wall Street Journal adds:

China welcomed Iran’s new nuclear fuel-swap agreement, saying the deal supports Beijing’s long-held position that the international dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions can be resolved through diplomacy rather than sanctions or force.

“We hope this will help promote a peaceful settlement of the Iranian nuclear issue through dialogue and negotiation,” foreign ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said Tuesday at a regular press briefing. “We believe dialogue and negotiation is the best approach to settle the Iranian nuclear issue.”

Under the deal arranged by Brazil and Turkey, Iran will ship out some of its uranium to Turkey, have it enriched and then shipped back to Iran for use in a medical research reactor. Western powers want to keep Iran from enriching uranium on its own soil, because it fears that fuel will end up being used for nuclear weapons, which Tehran denies. The latest deal is a weakened version of one that was negotiated last October but fell through after Iran’s government didn’t approve it.

For China, a deal brokered by Brazil and Turkey is in line with its broader vision of a more multipolar world order not dominated by Washington.

Julian Borger thinks that Iran might have overplayed its hand.

The initial western response to the new Turkish-Brazilian-Iranian uranium swap deal was akin to a chess player realising loss is inevitable. There was an awkward silence and quietly spreading panic as western capitals looked a few moves ahead and could not think of a way of escaping the trap they had fallen into. The deal would have to be accepted, even though it did little to slow down Iran’s nuclear drive, and the push for sanctions in New York would deflate.

And then, the Iranian foreign ministry decided to speak. The spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, declared: “Of course, enrichment of uranium to 20% will continue inside Iran.”

The announcement was stunning. Iran’s justification for beginning 20% enrichment in February, was that it needed the material to make medical isotopes for the Tehran research reactor, although it was unclear how the Iranians were going to fabricate the necessary rods. Under this new deal, the rods will be provided free of charge. What then would be the civilian use of Iran’s home-enriched uranium?

For those already convinced Iran is working its way to breakout nuclear weapons capacity, the point of enriching to 20% is clear. In engineering terms it is a lot more than half way to 90% weapons-grade material, and an important test of the reliability of Iran’s centrifuges in reaching that goal.

Within minutes, the western capitals, tongue-tied over their response for the first few hours, began to rally.

But if Washington hoped that there might at least be unity in the expression of Western reservations about the deal, that hope was swiftly undermined as the French President Nicholas Sarkozy said he sees this development as a “positive step.”

Facebooktwittermail

Haiti’s suffering is a result of calculated impoverishment

Haiti’s suffering is a result of calculated impoverishment
By Seumas Milne, The Guardian, January 20, 2010

There is no relief for the people of Haiti, it seems, even in their hour of promised salvation. More than a week after the earthquake that may have killed 200,000 people, most Haitians have seen nothing of the armada of aid they have been promised by the outside world. Instead, while the US military has commandeered Port-au-Prince’s ­airport to pour thousands of soldiers into the stricken Caribbean state, wounded and hungry survivors of the catastrophe have carried on dying.

Most scandalously, US commanders have repeatedly turned away flights bringing medical equipment and ­emergency supplies from organisations such as the World Food Programme and Médecins Sans Frontières, in order to give priority to landing troops. Despite the remarkable patience and solidarity on the streets and the relatively small scale of looting, the aim is said to be to ensure security and avoid “another Somalia” – a reference to the US ­military’s “Black Hawk Down” ­humiliation in 1993. It’s an approach that ­certainly chimes with well-­established traditions of keeping Haiti under control.

In the last couple of days, another motivation has become clearer as the US has launched a full-scale naval blockade of Haiti to prevent a seaborne exodus by refugees seeking sanctuary in the United States from the desperate aftermath of disaster. So while Welsh firefighters and Cuban ­doctors have been getting on with the job of ­saving lives this week, the 82nd Airborne Division was busy parachuting into the ruins of Haiti’s presidential palace.

There’s no doubt that more Haitians have died as a result of these shockingly perverse priorities. As Patrick Elie, former defence minister in the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide – twice overthrown with US support – put it: “We don’t need soldiers, there’s no war here.” It’s hardly surprising if Haitians such as Elie, or French and Venezuelan leaders, have talked about the threat of a new US occupation, given the scale of the takeover.

Their criticisms have been dismissed as kneejerk anti-Americanism at a time when the US military is regarded as the only force that can provide the ­logistical backup for the relief effort. In the context of Haiti’s gruesome history of invasion and exploitation by the US and European colonial powers, though, that is a truly asinine response. For while last week’s earthquake was a natural ­disaster, the scale of the human catastrophe it has unleashed is man-made. [continued…]

When the media is the disaster
By Rebecca Solnit, TomDispatch, January 21, 2010

Soon after almost every disaster the crimes begin: ruthless, selfish, indifferent to human suffering, and generating far more suffering. The perpetrators go unpunished and live to commit further crimes against humanity. They care less for human life than for property. They act without regard for consequences.

’m talking, of course, about those members of the mass media whose misrepresentation of what goes on in disaster often abets and justifies a second wave of disaster. I’m talking about the treatment of sufferers as criminals, both on the ground and in the news, and the endorsement of a shift of resources from rescue to property patrol. They still have blood on their hands from Hurricane Katrina, and they are staining themselves anew in Haiti.

Within days of the Haitian earthquake, for example, the Los Angeles Times ran a series of photographs with captions that kept deploying the word “looting.” One was of a man lying face down on the ground with this caption: “A Haitian police officer ties up a suspected looter who was carrying a bag of evaporated milk.” The man’s sweaty face looks up at the camera, beseeching, anguished. [continued…]

The fault line in Haiti runs straight to France
By Ben Macintyre, The Times, January 21, 2010

Where does the fault lie in Haiti? For geologists, it lies on the line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. For some, the earthquake is evidence of God’s wrath: the American evangelist Pat Robertson has even suggested that the horror is recompense for some voodoo pact made with the Devil at Haiti’s birth.

More sensible voices point to the procession of despots who have plundered Haiti over the years, depriving it of an effective infrastructure and rendering it uniquely vulnerable to natural disaster. But for many Haitians, the fault lies earlier — with Haiti’s colonial experience, the slavers and extortionists of empire who crippled it with debt and permanently stunted the economy. The fault line runs back 200 years, directly to France.

In the 18th century, Haiti was France’s imperial jewel, the Pearl of the Caribbean, the largest sugar exporter in the world. Even by colonial standards, the treatment of slaves working the Haitian plantations was truly vile. They died so fast that, at times, France was importing 50,000 slaves a year to keep up the numbers and the profits. [continued…]

Some frank talk about Haiti
By Nicholas D Kristof, New York Times, January 21, 2010

Haiti isn’t impoverished because the devil got his due; it’s impoverished partly because of debts due. France imposed a huge debt that strangled Haiti. And when foreigners weren’t looting Haiti, its own rulers were.

The greatest predation was the deforestation of Haiti, so that only 2 percent of the country is forested today. Some trees have been — and continue to be — cut by local peasants, but many were destroyed either by foreigners or to pay off debts to foreigners. Last year, I drove across the island of Hispaniola, and it was surreal: You traverse what in places is a Haitian moonscape until you reach the border with the Dominican Republic — and jungle.

Without trees, Haiti lost its topsoil through erosion, crippling agriculture.

To visit Haiti is to know that its problem isn’t its people. They are its treasure — smart, industrious and hospitable — and Haitians tend to be successful in the United States (and everywhere but in Haiti). [continued…]

Facebooktwittermail

NEWS: France’s expanding nuclear trade

France signs up to £2 billion deal to build nuclear plants in the Gulf
By Sonia Verma, The Times, January 16, 2008

France has agreed a £2 billion deal to build nuclear power stations in the Gulf and in return has secured a military base there.

The French base in Abu Dhabi would accommodate up to 500 troops. It would probably serve as a maintenance station for France’s naval vessels in the Gulf and could also be used as a springboard to send troops into the troubled region.

“France responds to its friends,” President Sarkozy said, calling the deal “a sign to all that France is participating in the stability of this region”.

The French moves followed an American promise to sell £10 billion of weaponry to Gulf states to help them to counter the influence of Iran. [complete article]

Sarkozy: Arabs have nuclear right
Al Jazeera, January 14, 2008

Nicolas Sarkozy has said that Arab countries should have the right to develop nuclear energy.

However, the French president said that right should not be extended to Iran until the government in Tehran has proved definitively that it does not intend to acquire nuclear weapons.

Sarkozy told Al Jazeera in the Qatari capital Doha on Monday: “In 40 years from now there will be no oil left and in 100 years no more gas, nuclear power will replace those energy sources … It is the energy of the future. [complete article]

Facebooktwittermail

NEWS: Egypt outrages Israel; Israel ready to talk to Syria; Syria alienates France

Egypt opens crossing so Palestinians can return
By Ellen Knickmeyer and Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, January 3, 2008

Egypt opened its main crossing into the Gaza Strip on Wednesday to allow more than 2,000 Palestinian pilgrims — including at least one official of the armed Hamas movement — to return to their homes there, outraging Israel in a growing dispute over border security.

The return followed a month of increasingly bitter words between the two neighbors over Egypt’s policing of its border with Gaza, which Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni last month described as “terrible.”

The friction between the two long-standing partners in U.S.-brokered peace deals comes as President Bush prepares to visit the region next week with a goal of smoothing the way for further peace accords. [complete article]

Israel signals willingness to reopen talks with Syria
By Nathan Guttman, The Forward, January 2, 2008

Following a softening of the Bush administration’s opposition to Israeli-Syrian contacts, the Israeli government is actively exploring the possibility of reopening negotiations with Syria, according to Israeli sources and a senior Republican lawmaker who visited Damascus last week.

The Republican lawmaker, Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, spoke after meeting last Sunday, December 30, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and conveying a message from Israel’s prime minister, Ehud Olmert.

Specter, accompanied by Democratic Rep. Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, told Assad that Israel is still waiting for a response to its request that Syria take public actions to prove its readiness for peace negotiations. For Specter, this message was seen as giving a green light to negotiations. “The time is right now, and prospects are very good,” the senator told reporters in Damascus after meeting Assad. “The parties will continue talks through intermediaries, and it’s my hope and expectation at some point, if preliminary progress has been made, the U.S. government would be ready, too.” [complete article]

Israel does not expect war with Iran: Peres
AFP, January 2, 2008

Israeli President Shimon Peres said he did not believe a war with Iran would be necessary but called for the end of the current government in Tehran, in an interview published Wednesday.

Peres told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was dangerous for Israel and the region but that other means could be used to contain the threat. [complete article]

Syria’s foreign politics
The Economist, January 1, 2008

The French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has made good on his threat to take action against Syria on account of its presumed role in blocking the election of a new president of Lebanon. Speaking in Cairo at the end of a holiday-cum-official visit, Mr Sarkozy said that France will henceforth suspend all diplomatic contact with Syria “as long as we do not have proof of their [the Syrians’] willingness to allow Lebanon to have a consensus president”. In a further swipe at the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, Mr Sarkozy said that France was willing to bankroll the tribunal that has been established under UN auspices to try those charged with the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri, a former Lebanese prime minister, and a series of subsequent political murders in Lebanon—Syrian involvement is strongly suspected, although Mr Assad has consistently denied responsibility.

Mr Sarkozy’s exasperation follows several weeks of intensive French diplomacy aimed at working with Syria on a solution to the Lebanese presidential impasse. The French president dispatched several of his senior foreign policy advisers to Damascus, and spoke to Mr Assad on the telephone on three occasions in pursuit of a breakthrough. This approach appeared to mark a shift from that of the outgoing president, Jacques Chirac, in that it invited Syria to wield its influence in Lebanon. Mr Chirac had been the architect of a joint policy with the US that sought to extirpate all Syrian influence over Lebanese affairs in the interest of enabling Lebanon to achieve full independence and sovereignty over its territory. [complete article]

Eight Gazans killed by IDF fire; Katyusha hits north Ashkelon
By Yuval Azoulay, Avi Issacharoff, and Mijal Grinberg, Haaretz, January 3, 2008

A Katyusha rocket fired by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip on Thursday morning struck an open field in northern Ashkelon, the furthest distance a rocket has struck yet – traveling some 16.5 kilometers.

Also Thursday, at least eight Palestinians were killed by Israel Defense Forces fire in several separate incidents in the Gaza Strip, including at least four militants. [complete article]

Facebooktwittermail